TPC Journal-Vol 10- Issue 2-FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 10, Issue 2 277 this equipment. So that in the future other students will be able to be taught how to be using the mixer or putting beats into tracks.” Jordan wanted to be able to support other students outside of his class by teaching the skills that he plans on developing, which included “using the mixer” and “putting beats into tracks.” This expression demonstrated an understanding of the importance of teaching others how to utilize the school studio, which will contribute to the longevity of the space. Gabriel reported that “You teaching them how to rap, how to use the mic, the laptop and all that, that’s just gonna inspire their friends to come. They teach their friends and the cycle just continues like that.” Believing in how beneficial the studio was for them, Gabriel mentioned wanting to support his peers by sharing skills that were needed to effectively run the school studio so it could continue to be used. Gabriel also highlights that teaching others to make use of the school studio space will create a cycle that theoretically will allow students to bring their friends to engage as well. Therefore, not only is the school studio intriguing to students, but it will support their development of skills to maintain its use. Discussion This study was designed to increase understanding of the experiences of students partaking in a classroom-based school counseling intervention in which they co-constructed a hip-hop studio. Counseling environment data has suggested that counselors often take the lead on the creation of environments for clients (Pearson & Wilson, 2012), whereas we encourage school counselors to partner with youth in the creation of their own counseling spaces (L. Smith & Chambers, 2015). Broadly, results support the co-construction of school studios as culturally relevant environments that promote social and emotional development, addressing a need in the literature for research exploring multicultural counseling office design (Benton & Overtree, 2012). Further, the use of the CAS model enabled a collaboration in which a classroom teacher deployed an indirect and culturally responsive school counseling intervention to support students’ personal/social development (ASCA, 2019b; Ratts & Greenleaf, 2018). Student Experiences Results of this exploratory action research demonstrated that students experienced a sense of comfort and belonging inside the school studio. Similarly, Sanders and Lehmann (2019) indicated that clients felt a sense of comfort when the counseling office felt like a home or a lounge rather than a traditional office space. Further, data from the current study showed that the studio creation process empowered students to advocate for inclusivity in the use of this space for their entire school campus community. This outcome is ideal given that school counselors are charged with activating the entire school community in the deployment of school-wide interventions that support students’ academic, career, and personal/social development (Bryan et al., 2019). In specific comments, youth stated that they would want to locate peers who are in need of help and bring them to the school studio to develop personal/social skills. These statements suggest that after participating in the school counseling intervention, youth voiced that making the studio available to all students would improve the school counseling program at their school. This finding gives credence to the use of advisory councils at schools, with student members, to offer youth a platform to ensure that school counselors and their school counseling programs are serving all students (ASCA, 2019b). Additionally, a bevy of studies emphasized supporting youth in the development of skills as change agents in promoting peace, youth voice, and healing (Allan & Duckworth, 2018; Conner & Cosner, 2016; Levy, Emdin et al., 2018). Overall, the findings are important in that they support the use of studio co-creation as a classroom-based counseling intervention, which research suggests can result in school-wide impact (Bostik & Anderson, 2009).